by David Safier
A NOT-THAT-JOHN-TIERNY NOTE: Google tells me there are three prominent John Tierney's: the U.S. Rep. from Massachusetts, John M. Tierney, who writes for the NY Times and John T. Tierney, who writes for the Atlantic. This is about the Atlantic writer.
A just-out article from the Atlantic: The Coming Revolution in Public Education, written by John T. Tierney. Tierney is not talking about the conservative "education reform" revolution spearheaded by the likes of Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee and funded by billionaires. That's the decades-old revolution which has pretty much sucked the air out of any public discussion of alternate educational ideas. He's talking about the revolution against the Bush/Rhee/Billionaire-Boys-Club's test crazed, anti-union, anti-"government schools" movement. And he thinks the new revolution is going to win out.
It's a longish, well thought-out article filled with all the links you need if you want even more information. Here are some of the reasons Tierney thinks the test-driven, data-driven, privatization movement will lose its luster: "Education policies based on standardization and uniformity tend to fail." [I love this next one] "Policies based on distrust of teachers tend to fail." "Judging teachers' performance by students' test scores is both substantively and procedurally flawed." [I love this next one too] "More people are realizing that many of the organizations involved in 'corporate reform' seem to need reforming themselves." [Who could this next one be talking about? {cough . . . Michelle Rhee . . . cough}] "People wonder why reformers themselves aren't held accountable."
The article refers to an excellent recent piece by ASU's David Berliner as well as statements by Diane Ravitch.
SPEAKING OF DIANE RAVITCH: Ravitch, one of the loudest and most prominent voices against "corporate education reform," has begun a new organization, Network for Public Education. If you want to keep up with what's happening on the progressive education front, sign up for the group's emails and "Like" its Facebook page. I found this article on a link in a NPE Facebook post.